Stewarts' Ramble: Portugal, Cont., October 2017

Lisbon, October 3-6

Driving into Lisbon, we turned on Google Maps to locate our hotel, the Solar dos Mouros, which was located in the Alfama district on a hillside below the Castelo São Jorge. However, the GPS directions seemed so improbable that we circled the area several times before coming to a stop in front of a retractable bollard blocking the narrow street where the hotel was located. Georgia then proceeded on foot to seek help from the desk clerk. With the bollard lowered, we drove to the hotel but concluded that it would be prudent to return the Fiat to Hertz that afternoon and rely on the city’s metro.

The Infamous Bollard: "Stop" Is Right

The Solar dos Mouros was a funky 13-room boutique hotel with great views of downtown Lisbon and the Tagus River. For the convenience of pedestrians climbing to the upper reaches of Alfama, the city operates two elevators that are free but cease running at 9:00 p.m. Thus, our evenings ended with long hikes up several flights of steep stairs.

Downtown Lisbon has a wealth of attractions including the beautiful Praça do Comercio on the river; the elegant Avenida da Liberdade, a Portuguese Champs-Élysée; and the renowned Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, which houses the extensive and diverse art collection of the eponymous Armenian oil magnate who left his collection and his fortune to Portugal in gratitude for sheltering him during World War II.

Rua Augusta leading to the Praça do Comercio

Praça do Comercio

Art Nouveau Brooche from the Renowned Lalique Collection in the Gulbenkian

One evening we went to a neighborhood restaurant to hear the renowned Portuguese fado; three fadistas sang to the accompaniment of a guitar and a quasi-mandolin with the older woman outshining the others in communicating the sorrow of her songs.

Fadista

Belém is a suburb of Lisbon, easily reachable by train, at the mouth of the Tagus. There we visited the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, another jewel of 16th century Manueline architecture; Vasco da Gama is interred there. Not far from the monastery is the Torre de Belém, built in 1515-1519 to defend the river mouth; it is possibly the most elegant military fortification we have ever seen. Finally, there is the iconic Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of Discoveries), built in 1960, which shows Prince Henry the Navigator pointing the way to the Portuguese seafaring explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Façade of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos

Interior Court of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos

Torre de Bélem

Padrão dos Descobrimentos

Tomb of Vasco da Gama

Homage to Vasco da Gama Photographed by Georgia aboard the Seven Seas Navigator

Sintra, a 30-minute train ride to the coastal hills northwest of Lisbon, is the site of the summer palace that served successive Portuguese rulers before the abolition of the monarchy in 1910. Begun at the end of the 14th century on the site of a Moorish palace, the palace has been altered often over the centuries and now reflects a homey but attractive blend of Moorish and Manueline styles. In the town we sampled the famous and delicious queijadas de Sintra, thin, flaky pastry cases filled with fresh cheese, egg yolks, flour, sugar syrup, and cinnamon.

Palácio Nacional de Sintra

(The cones are chimneys.)

Village of Sintra

Manueline Tracery inside the Palace

Queijadas

Madeira, October 8

We boarded the Regent Seven Seas Navigator at Lisbon on October 6 and sailed southwest for a day and a half to reach Madeira, which forms with Porto Santo, its smaller sister island, a semi-autonomous region of Portugal.

Madeira has long been a destination resort for wealthier Europeans, especially British. Following his electoral defeat in 1945, Winston Churchill spent months there painting and writing his wartime memoirs. The British influence is notably strong in the Madeira wine industry, which inter alia produces Malmsey (Portuguese: Malvasia), a traditional English digestif also popular in 18th century America. Reid’s Palace Hotel in Funchal, Madeira’s capital, has been the focus of upscale British tourism since its establishment in 1891. We stopped there in the afternoon to enjoy a glass of Madeira and savor the atmosphere. We half-expected to see Lord Grantham and the rest of the Crawley family.

Madeira Village Where Churchill Used to Paint

Funchal Harbor Seen from Reid's Palace Hotel

Funchal is built into the island’s steep mountains, and the city’s higher suburbs are reachable by cable car (manufactured, like Sun Valley’s, by Doppelmayr). In the heights are sizable quintas, built mainly by wealthy foreigners. In one Karl I, the last Austro-Hungarian emperor, died in 1922; he is buried in the local church. The lower sections of the town are attractive and tourist-oriented, appropriately so as two other, much larger, cruise ships were docked there during our visit and the streets were filled with visitors.

Downtown Funchal

The Azores, October 10 and 11

Like Madeira, the Azores form a semi-autonomous region of Portugal. São Miguel and Faial, our two island stops there, were pleasant surprises. Both are lushly green with dairy cattle grazing on their slopes and tea grown on São Miguel. The churches and public buildings are black and white with lines of volcanic basalt delimiting areas of plaster. Both islands are volcanically active with fumaroles, and Faial was the scene of a colossal eruption in 1957-1958 that added several square kilometers to the island’s territory but led many inhabitants to immigrate to the United States. In the yachting world Faial is known as a favorite stopover for cross-Atlantic crossings. Despite the warm weather (high 70’s) neither island was inundated with tourists although attractive accommodations existed on both.

Upland Pastures on São Miguel

Tea Plantation on Såo Miguel

Bagging Tea on the Plantation

Downtown Ponta Delgada, Såo Miguel

En Route to Capelhinos Volcano, Which Erupted Offshore in 1957-58

Boiling Corn in a Fumerole on São Miguel

Late Season Hydrangea

(The Azores, particularly Faial, are covered with them in the summer.)

Peter's Sport Café, a Rendezvous for Trans-Atlantic Yachtsmen

Final Thoughts

We were extremely lucky with the weather. There was no rain and temperatures were in the 70s and 80s at all our on-shore locations Locals commented everywhere on the unseasonable warmth. The downside was that these temperatures lured many northern European tourists looking to enjoy a last bit of summer.

The Portuguese road network was a marvel. Its system of tollways (autostradas) features long bridges and viaducts, recently constructed, we suspect, with European Union funding. On some routes the toll collection was automatic: we had rented a transponder from Hertz that beeped as we drove at speed under each sensor that spanned the highway. The tolls will be charged via Hertz to our credit card.

The Regent Seven Seas Navigator proved to be a most civilized way to explore Madeira and the Azores and then make the five-day crossing from Faial to New York. Launched in 1999 but recently refurbished, the ship accommodates only 490 passengers, much more intimate than the new mega-cruisers but still offering a range of activities and enjoyable entertainment. The food and drink, all included in the fare, were first-class, and the crew was pleasant and professional The passengers were primarily American, but a substantial number of other countries were represented. Not surprisingly, the great majority of the passengers were retirees, and there were no young children.